FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING APPLICATION USER GUIDE

FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING APPLICATION USER GUIDE

Forest Management Planning Table of Contents 1 ABOUT FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING 4 1.1 ACCESSING FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING 4 2 USING FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANNING.. 5 2.1 LINKS.... 5 About... 5 Contact.. 5 Help... 5 TFS Home.. 5 2.2 NAVIGATING THE MAP... 5 Navigating to a Specific Location... 5 Zooming and Panning. 6 Selecting a Basemap... 6 2.3 TOOLS....... 7 Property Information..... 7 Download and Fill out Form.... 8 Find Location of Property..... 8 Draw Property Boundary...... 9 Measure...... 10 Print or Export Map to PDF...... 11 February 2013 Page 2

List of Figures Forest Management Planning Main page.... 4 Links...... 5 Zoom Slider....... 6 Navigation Tools...... 6 Basemap Slider..... 6 Property Information... 7 Download and Fill out Form get form... 7 Download and Fill out Form to see this tool........ 7 Download and Fill out Form tool not available..... 7 Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document... 8 Find Location of Property 8 Location of Property. 9 Draw Property 9 BDraw d Property Boundary with label....... 10 Draw Property Boundary to be edited with vertices...... 10 Measure... 11 Measure Line... 11 Print or Export Map to PDF....... 11 Print Preview Portrait and Landscape..... 12 February 2013 Page 3

1 About Forest Management Planning 1.1 Accessing Forest Management Planning The Forest Management Planning application is located at http://tfsfrd.tamu.edu/forestmanagementplanning/ and is accessible using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Apple Safari. It is recommended that Firefox or Google Chrome be used with the application to optimize performance. Forest Management Planning Application main page February 2013 Page 4

2 Using Forest Management Planning 2.1 Links About The Forest Management Planning Tool is a mechanism for the Texas A&M Forest Service to provide property owners who own 20 or less than 20 forested acres with tools to create the "Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document." Landowners with more than 20 forested acres will need to contact the Texas A&M Forest Service or a Consulting Forester for a Management Plan. The "Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document" is a template that property owners can fill out to document their activities and provide to their local County Appraisal District if they request a Timber Management Plan to qualify for timberland valuation. The Forest Management Planning Tool includes a suite of applications tailored to support locating the property, drawing and editing the property boundary, measuring areas, measuring distances, and previewing the property boundary map before it is printed or converted to PDF and attached to the main document. Contact The Texas A&M Forest Service invites you to provide feedback on the Forest Management Planning Application. Please provide your comments and suggestions for improvement using the Contact page on the site. Help User documentation is provided online. Click the Help link available on the main page to access this user guide. Additionally, for quick information, press the icon in each application. Home Click TFS Home to return to the Texas A&M Forest Service main page. 2.2 Navigating the Map There are several ways to navigate the map. You can zoom to a specific location by entering an address on the Find location of property tool or you can manually pan and zoom around the map using the zoom slider, zoom and pan tools on the top of the map panel. Navigating to a Specific Location Please see description of the Find Location of Property tool under 2.3 Tools. February 2013 Page 5

Zooming and Panning There are several ways to zoom and pan around the map. These include using the Zoom Slider, Navigation tools, and the Zoom Extent tools. If you have drawn an area, make sure you have the drawn area unselected before you use these navigation controls. Navigation Control Zoom Slider Incremental Zoom use the + and - buttons to change to desired zoom level. Navigation Tools Zoom In Draw a rectangle to zoom in to desired location Zoom Out Draw a rectangle to zoom out. Pan Drag the mouse in any direction Zoom Extent Tools Selecting a Base Map Previous Extent Zoom to previous extent in extent history Next Extent Zoom to next extent in extent history Full Extent Zoom to full extent of the map You can view different base maps anytime you desire by sliding to the map option you prefer to view: Hybrid Bing! aerial imagery and roads data source Streets Esri roads data source US Topo Esri topographic base map source February 2013 Page 6

2.3 Tools The tools will help you locate and map your property and obtain a fillable template document to help you document activities for a timber management plan. Property Information This tool helps to define eligibility to download the Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document, which is a template that property owners can fill out to document their activities and provide to their local County Appraisal District if they request a Timber Management Plan to qualify for timberland valuation. To use this tool, first select the county where property is located, and then type the size of the property in acres. If the property has 20 or less than 20 forested acres, the user can download the form. Otherwise, landowners with more than 20 acres will need to contact the Texas A&M Forest Service or a Consulting Forester for a Management Plan. Download and Fill out Form If you used the previous tool and your property is less than 20 acres, you should be able to click on the button to download the Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document. Fill out the form digitally, print, and sign it. You can also save the file to your computer to fill it out at another time. If you haven t used the previous tool you will see a message stating that you need to use the property information to see this tool. If you used the previous tool and the property size is larger than 20 acres, you will see a message stating that the tool is not available for the property size. February 2013 Page 7

Find Location of Property Type an address or place name and press the Find Address Button. Valid addresses can be in the format of number, street name, city and state abbreviation (or zip code) such as 200 Technology Way, 77845 or 200 Technology Way, College Station, TX). Additionally, you can enter just the place name and state abbreviation (or zip code) such as Jot 'Em Down, Texas or the street name, city and state (or zip code), for example FM 2154, 77845 or US 290, Dripping Springs, TX. If there is a match, the tool window will show the address returned and the map will zoom in to the place matching that location. Click on Clear Point if you wish to delete the point displaying the location of the address you used to find the location of the property. February 2013 Page 8

Draw Property Boundary Click on the Draw button, move the cursor to the map, click on a corner of the property to start drawing, move the cursor in the direction of the next corner and keep clicking and moving the cursor until you draw the entire property. To finish drawing the areas just double-click. If you are not satisfied with part of the drawing and want to edit it, click on the drawn property to create vertices (gray squares) that can be dragged to reshape the boundary. To do that, click on the area you wish to change and drag the vertex to a new location. If you want to move the entire property, click on the drawing, pan around until you see an icon and then move the drawing to a new location. To remove the vertices, just click anywhere on the map. If you want to draw additional areas repeat the previous steps. If you are not satisfied with the entire drawing, click on Clear Drawing and it will be deleted from the map. If you do not wish to display the labels inside the property boundary, click on Clear Labels and the labels will be deleted from the map. February 2013 Page 9

Measure Click on the Area button, move the cursor to the map, click anywhere on the map for which you want to measure the size of an area. To start drawing, move the cursor in the direction of the next corner and keep clicking and moving the cursor until you draw the entire area. To finish drawing the area, just double-click. If you are not satisfied with part of the drawing and want to edit it, click on the drawn property to create vertices (gray squares) that can be dragged to reshape the boundary. To do that, click on the area you wish to change and drag the vertex to a new location. If you want to move the entire property, click on the drawing, pan around until you see an icon and then move the drawing. To measure line distance, click on the Line button, move the cursor to the map and click anywhere you want to calculate distance, move the cursor in the direction of the line you want to calculate and double-click to complete the line and display the distance next to the line. Up to 3 miles, the distance is given in feet. Otherwise, the distance is given in miles. Click the Clear Drawing to clear all the drawings and labels generated by this tool from the map. February 2013 Page 10

Print or Export Map to PDF This tool has two options: Landscape and Portrait. In both options you can preview the map before you print or save it to a PDF format. Make sure you align the property on the display before you click on the button. You may need to pan the map around to find the best position for the print preview. In the preview window, type your name next to Owner s name and type the county name where property is located, next to County. Your name and the county name will be printed on the printed map page if you click on Print to print a copy of the map or will be saved to the map in PDF if you click on PDF and save it to your local computer. When you save the document to your computer make sure the file is saved in a PDF format by including the pdf extension in the file name, for example PDFMap.pdf. Whether you print the map directly or first create a PDF file, make sure your printer s page orientation is either Landscape or Portrait, depending on the map s orientation, and the paper size is 8.5X11 inches. After printing the map, add it to the Landowner Prepared Forest Management Document form before you submit it to your local county appraisal district. February 2013 Page 11

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